1.
1912 in France
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Events from the year 1912 in France. 13 January - Raymond Poincaré forms a government, beginning his first term of office as Prime Minister on 21 January. 30 March - Treaty of Fez, Sultan Abdelhafid gives up the sovereignty of Morocco,10 April - RMS Titanic embarks passengers from tenders at Cherbourg for the only time. Marcel Duchamp paints Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2,26 June -1912 French Grand Prix, won by Georges Boillot driving a Peugeot. 30 June–28 July - 10th Tour de France, won by Odiel Defraye

2.
1911 in France
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Events from the year 1911 in France. 1 July - Agadir Crisis, sparked by deployment of German gunboat to the Moroccan port of Agadir,25 September - French battleship Liberté explodes at anchor in Toulon. 21 December - First robbery of the Bonnot gang,22 August - Theft of Mona Lisa discovered in Louvre. 7 September - Poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and jailed on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre,2 July - The ninth Tour de France begins. 30 July - Tour de France ends, won by Gustave Garrigou

3.
1910 in France
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Events from the year 1910 in France. 15 January - Constant rain in Paris causes the Seine to overflow its banks, all but one line of the Paris Métro becomes filled with water, effectively draining water from the city. 24 April - French legislative election held,8 May - French legislative election held. 2 July - Demonstrations in France against public executions,3 July - The eighth Tour de France begins. 31 July - Tour de France ends, won by Octave Lapize

4.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks

5.
1914 in France
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Events from the year 1914 in France. Why 16 March - Wife of French minister Joseph Caillaux shoots Gaston Calmette,26 April - French legislative election held. 10 May - French legislative election held,31 July - Jean Jaurès assassinated by a French nationalist fanatic 3 August - Germany declares war on Russias ally France. 9 August - Battle of Mulhouse begins, the attack of World War I by the French army against Germany. 26 August - Allies withdraw from Le Cateau to St. Quentin,29 August - French Fifth Army attack St. Quentin. 30 August - French Fifth Army retreat from St. Quentin,25 September - Battle of Albert begins. 27 September - First Battle of Artois begins,1 October - Battle of Arras begins. 4 October - Lens is lost, as French Tenth Army fails to back the Germans. 4 November - Britain and France declare war on the Ottoman Empire,20 December - First Battle of Champagne begins. 28 June - The 12th Tour de France begins

6.
1915 in France
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Events from the year 1915 in France. 19 January - Georges Claude patents the neon tube for use in advertising. 9 May - Second Battle of Artois starts,15 May - Second Battle of Artois ends in stalemate. 10 September - Satirical weekly newspaper Le Canard enchaîné first published,15 September - Third Battle of Artois begins. 25 September Battle of Loos begins, a major British offensive on the Western Front,28 September - Battle of Loos ends with British retreat. 16 October - France declares war on Bulgaria,4 November - Third Battle of Artois ends. 6 November - Second Battle of Champagne ends, antoine Guillaumont, archaeologist and Syriac scholar 15 September - Alfred Agache, painter Michel Bréal, philologist

7.
1916 in France
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Events from the year 1916 in France. 29 January - Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time,21 February - Battle of Verdun begins. 27 April - Battle of Hulluch in World War I, 47th Brigade,16 May - Britain and France conclude the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement to divide Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire following the conclusion of World War I into French and British spheres of influence. 1 July - First day on the Somme,14 July - Battle of Bazentin Ridge, start of the second phase of the Battle of the Somme. 15 September - Battle of Flers-Courcelette begins and lasts for a week, third,25 September - Battle of Morval. 26 September - Battle of Thiepval Ridge begins, German fortress of Thiepval is captured by the British,28 September - Battle of Thiepval Ridge ends successfully, with the capture of the Schwaben Redoubt. 13 November - Battle of the Ancre launches, the act of the Battle of the Somme. 18 November - Battle of the Somme ends,18 December - Battle of Verdun ends

8.
1913
–
As of the start of 1913, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923. January 1 – The British Board of Film Censors receives the authority to classify, January 12 – Bolshevik activist Josef Dzhugashvili first publishes an article under the pseudonym Stalin which he adopts hereafter. At this time he, Adolf Hitler and Josip Broz Tito are simultaneously resident in Vienna, January 13 – Edward Carson founds the Ulster Volunteer Force by unifying several existing loyalist militias to resist home rule for Ireland. January 23 – General election in Tasmania, January 23 – In the 1913 Ottoman coup détat, Ismail Enver comes to power. January 30 – The British House of Lords rejects an Irish Home Rule Bill February 1 – New York Citys Grand Central Terminal, having been rebuilt, reopens as the worlds largest railroad station. February 3 – The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose, February 9 – Mexican Revolution, Beginning of La Decena Trágica, the rebellion of some military chiefs against the President Francisco I. February 13 – Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama, declares the independence of Tibet from Qing dynasty China, February 18 – Mexican Revolution, President Francisco I. Madero and Vice President José María Pino Suárez are forced to resign, pedro Lascuráin serves as President for less than an hour before General Victoriano Huerta, leader of the coup, takes office February 22 – Mexican Revolution, Assassination of Francisco I. Madero and José María Pino Suárez, February 23 – Joseph Stalin is arrested by the Russian secret police, the Okhrana, in Petrograd and exiled to Siberia. March The House of Romanov celebrates the 300th anniversary of its succession to the throne, following the assassination of his rival Song Jiaoren, Yuan Shikai uses military force to dissolve Chinas parliament and rules as a dictator. March 1 – British steamship Calvados disappears in the Sea of Marmara with 200 on board, march 3 – The Woman suffrage parade of 1913 takes place in Washington, D. C. led by Inez Milholland on horseback. March 4 Woodrow Wilson is sworn in as President of the United States, the U. S. Department of Commerce and U. S. Department of Labor are established by splitting the duties of the 10-year-old Department of Commerce and Labor. The Census Bureau, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries and U. S. Coast, march 4–6 – First Balkan War, Battle of Bizani, Forces of the Kingdom of Greece capture the forts of Bizani from the Ottoman Empire. March 7 – The British freighter Alum Chine, carrying 343 tons of dynamite, march 12 – Australia begins building the new federal capital of Canberra. March 13 – Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa returns to Mexico from his exile in the United States. March 17 – The Military Aviation Academy is founded in Uruguay, the Uruguayan Air Force would grow from this foundation. March 18 – George I of Greece is assassinated after 50 years on the throne and he is succeeded by his son Constantine. March 20 – Sung Chiao-jen, a founder of the Chinese nationalist party, is wounded in an assassination attempt, march 23 – Supporters of Phan Xích Long begin an attempt to revolt against colonial rule in French Indochina

9.
History of France
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The first written records for the history of France appear in the Iron Age. The Gauls, the largest and best attested group, were Celtic people speaking what is known as the Gaulish language, over the course of the 1st millennium BC the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians established colonies on the Mediterranean coast and the offshore islands. Afterwards a Gallo-Roman culture emerged and Gaul was increasingly integrated into the Roman Empire, in the later stages of the Roman Empire, Gaul was subject to barbarian raids and migration, most importantly by the Germanic Franks. The Frankish king Clovis I united most of Gaul under his rule in the late 5th century, Frankish power reached its fullest extent under Charlemagne. The war formally began in 1337 following Philip VIs attempt to seize the Duchy of Aquitaine from its holder, Edward III of England. Despite early Plantagenet victories, including the capture and ransom of John II of France, among the notable figures of the war was Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who led French forces against the English, establishing herself as a national heroine. The war ended with a Valois victory in 1453, victory in the Hundred Years War had the effect of strengthening French nationalism and vastly increasing the power and reach of the French monarchy. During the period known as the Ancien Régime, France transformed into an absolute monarchy. During the next centuries, France experienced the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, Henry, King of Navarre, scion of the Bourbon family, would be victorious in the conflict and establish the French Bourbon dynasty. A burgeoning worldwide colonial empire was established in the 16th century, French political power reached a zenith under the rule of Louis XIV, The Sun King, builder of Versailles Palace. In the late 18th century the monarchy and associated institutions were overthrown in the French Revolution, the country was governed for a period as a Republic, until the French Empire was declared by Napoleon Bonaparte. France was one of the Triple Entente powers in World War I, fighting alongside the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Japan, the United States and smaller allies against Germany and the Central Powers. France was one of the Allied Powers in World War II, the Third Republic was dismantled, and most of the country was controlled directly by Germany while the south was controlled until 1942 by the collaborationist Vichy government. Living conditions were harsh as Germany drained away food and manpower, Charles de Gaulle led the Free France movement that one-by-one took over the colonial empire, and coordinated the wartime Resistance. Following liberation in summer 1944, a Fourth Republic was established, France slowly recovered economically, and enjoyed a baby boom that reversed its very low fertility rate. Long wars in Indochina and Algeria drained French resources and ended in political defeat, in the wake of the Algerian Crisis of 1958, Charles de Gaulle set up the French Fifth Republic. Into the 1960s decolonization saw most of the French colonial empire become independent, while smaller parts were incorporated into the French state as overseas departments, since World War II France has been a permanent member in the UN Security Council and NATO. It played a role in the unification process after 1945 that led to the European Union

10.
President of France
–
The President of the French Republic, is the executive head of state of the French Fifth Republic. The powers, functions and duties of prior presidential offices, and their relation with the prime minister, the current President of France is François Hollande, who took office on 15 May 2012. Hollande has announced that he stand down in the upcoming 2017 French presidential election. President Chirac was first elected in 1995 and again in 2002, at that time, there was no limit on the number of terms, so Chirac could have run again, but chose not to. He was succeeded by Nicolas Sarkozy on 16 May 2007, following a further change, the Constitutional law on the Modernisation of the Institutions of the Fifth Republic,2008, a president cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac are the only Presidents to date who have served a two terms. In order to be admitted as a candidate, potential candidates must receive signed nominations from more than 500 elected officials. These officials must be from at least 30 départements or overseas collectivities, furthermore, each official may nominate only one candidate. There are exactly 45,543 elected officials, including 33,872 mayors, spending and financing of campaigns and political parties are highly regulated. There is a cap on spending, at approximately 20 million euros, if the candidate receives less than 5% of the vote, the government funds €8,000,000 to the party. Advertising on TV is forbidden but official time is given to candidates on public TV, an independent agency regulates election and party financing. After the president is elected, he or she goes through an investiture ceremony called a passation des pouvoirs. The French Fifth Republic is a semi-presidential system, unlike many other European presidents, the French President is quite powerful. The president holds the nations most senior office, and outranks all other politicians, the presidents greatest power is his/her ability to choose the prime minister. When the majority of the Assembly has opposite political views to that of the president, when the majority of the Assembly sides with them, the President can take a more active role and may, in effect, direct government policy. The prime minister is then the choice of the President. This device has been used in recent years by François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, since 2002, the mandate of the president and the Assembly are both 5 years and the two elections are close to each other. Therefore, the likelihood of a cohabitation is lower, among the powers of the government, The president promulgates laws

11.
Prime Minister of France
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The French Prime Minister in the Fifth Republic is the head of government and of the Council of Ministers of France. During the Third and Fourth Republics, the head of government position was called President of the Council of Ministers, the Prime Minister proposes a list of ministers to the President of the Republic. Decrees and decisions of the Prime Minister, like almost all decisions, are subject to the oversight of the administrative court system. Few decrees are taken after advice from the Council of State, all prime ministers defend the programs of their ministry, and make budgetary choices. The extent to which those decisions lie with the Prime Minister or President depends upon whether they are of the same party, manuel Valls was appointed to lead the government in a cabinet reshuffle in March 2014, after the ruling Socialists suffered a bruising defeat in local elections. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President of the Republic, the President can choose whomever they want. On the other hand, because the National Assembly does have the power to force the resignation of the government, for example, right after the legislative election of 1986, President François Mitterrand appointed Jacques Chirac prime minister. Chirac was a member of the RPR and an opponent of Mitterrand. Despite the fact that Mitterrands own Socialist Party was the largest party in the Assembly, the RPR had an alliance with the UDF, which gave them a majority. Such a situation, where the President is forced to work with a minister who is an opponent, is called a cohabitation. So far, Édith Cresson is the woman to have ever held the position of prime minister. Aristide Briand holds the record for most nomination as Prime Minister with 11 between 1909 and 1929 with some terms as short as 26 days, other members of Government are appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister can engage the responsibility of his or her Government before the National Assembly and this process consists of placing a bill before the Assembly, and either the Assembly overthrows the Government, or the bill is passed automatically. In addition to ensuring that the Government still has support in the House, the Prime Minister may also submit a bill that has not been yet signed into law to the Constitutional Council. Before he is allowed to dissolve the Assembly, the President has to consult the Prime Minister, the office of the prime minister, in its current form, dates from the formation of the French Third Republic. Under the French Constitutional Laws of 1875, he was imbued with the powers as his British counterpart. In practice, however, the minister was a fairly weak figure. Most notably, the legislature had the power to force the cabinet out of office by a vote of censure

12.
Aristide Briand
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Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and was a co-laureate of the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize. He was born in Nantes, Loire-Atlantique of a bourgeois family. He attended the Nantes Lycée, where, in 1877, he developed a friendship with Jules Verne. He studied law, and soon went into politics, associating himself with the most advanced movements, writing articles for the Syndicalist journal Le Peuple, from this he passed to the Petite République, leaving it to found LHumanité, in collaboration with Jean Jaurès. From that time, Briand was one of the leaders of the French Socialist Party, in 1902, after several unsuccessful attempts, he was elected deputy. He declared himself a partisan of the union of the Left in what was known as the Bloc. From the beginning of his career in the Chamber of Deputies, Briand was occupied with the question of the separation of church and state. He was appointed reporter of the charged with the preparation of the 1905 law on separation. He succeeded in carrying his project through with but slight modifications and he was the principal author of the law of separation, but, not content with preparing it, he wished to apply it as well. The ministry of Maurice Rouvier was allowing disturbances during the taking of inventories of church property, consequently, he accepted the portfolio of Public Instruction and Worship in the Sarrien ministry. So far as the Chamber was concerned, his success was complete, but the acceptance of a position in a bourgeois ministry led to his exclusion from the Unified Socialist Party. As opposed to Jaurès, he contended that the Socialists should co-operate actively with the Radicals in all matters of reform and he became a freemason in the lodge Le Trait dUnion in July 1887 while the lodge didnt record his name in spite of his repeated requests. The lodge declared unworthy to him on 6 September 1889, in 1895 he joined the lodge Les Chevaliers du Travail that was established in 1893. Briand served as Minister of Justice under Clemenceau in 1908-9, before succeeding Clemenceau as Prime Minister on 24 July 1909, in social policy, Briand’s first ministry was notable for the passage of a bill in April 1910 for workers and farmers pensions. That same year, compulsory sickness and old-age insurance was introduced for 8 million rural, however, a law court decision in 1912 that questioned the legality of compulsion “enabled a large proportion of employers and workers to evade the law. At the end of August 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War and he got on well with Lloyd George, who was also, contrary to military advice, keen for operations in the Balkans, and had a long talk with him on 4 February 1915. Briand was the main mover in persuading Maurice Sarrail to accept the Salonika command in August 1915, in October 1915 following an unsuccessful French offensive and the entry of Bulgaria, Briand again became Prime Minister, succeeding René Viviani. He also became Foreign Minister for the first time, a post held by Théophile Delcassé until the final weeks of the previous government

13.
Gaston Doumergue
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Pierre-Paul-Henri-Gaston Doumergue was a French politician of the Third Republic. Doumergue came from a Protestant family and was a freemason, beginning as a Radical, he turned more towards the political right in his old age. He served as Prime Minister from 9 December 1913 to 2 June 1914 and he was elected the thirteenth President of France on 13 June 1924, the only Protestant to hold that office. He served until 13 June 1931, and again was Prime Minister in a national unity government. This government lasted from 6 February to 8 November 1934 and he was widely regarded as one of the most popular French Presidents, particularly after highly controversial Alexandre Millerand, who was his predecessor. Doumergue was single when elected, and became the first President of France to marry in office, louis Malvy succeeds Renoult as Minister of the Interior. Raoul Péret succeeds Malvy as Minister of Commerce, Industry, Posts,20 March 1914 – Armand Gauthier de lAude succeeds Monis as Minister of Marine. Paul Marchandeau succeeds Sarraut as Minister of the Interior, louis Rollin succeeds Laval as Minister of Colonies. 15 October 1934 – Henri Lémery succeeds Chéron as Minister of Justice

14.
Bonnot Gang
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The Bonnot Gang was a French criminal anarchist group that operated in France and Belgium during the Belle Époque, from 1911 to 1912. Composed of individuals who identified with the emerging illegalist milieu, the gang utilized cutting-edge technology not yet available to the French police. Originally referred to by the press as simply The Auto Bandits, the gang was dubbed The Bonnot Gang after Jules Bonnot gave an interview at the office of Le Petit Parisien, a popular daily paper. Bonnots perceived prominence within the group was reinforced by his high-profile death during a shootout with French police in Choisy-le-Roi. Their story was adapted in cinema in 1969 and it also appeared in the popular 70s TV series Les Brigades du Tigre and its cinematographic adaptation made in 2005 with Jacques Gamblin as Jules Bonnot. The Bonnot Gang originally consisted of a group of French anarchists centered around the individualist anarchist magazine lAnarchie, the group was founded by Octave Garnier, Raymond Callemin, and René Valet. It was Garniers idea to use automobiles in the service of a criminal act. Jules Bonnot joined them in December 1911, the gangs political and social perspective was heavily influenced by Mikhail Bakunin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as well as Max Stirner, Ludwig Büchner, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Bonnots ideas were part with late anarchist Ravachol. The first robbery by Bonnots Gang was at the transfer of Société Générale Bank in Chantilly on December 21,1911. They escaped in an automobile they had stolen a week before, robbers – Bonnot, Octave Garnier, Eugène Dieudonné and Raymond Callemin – got booty equal to 5,126 francs, but the rest of it was composed of securities. On December 28,1911, the broke into a gun shop in the Paris center. A few days later, on the night of January 2,1912, they entered the home of the wealthy M. Moreau, the booty take was equal to 30,000 francs. The National Police did its best to catch the gang and they were able to arrest one man based on their registry of anarchist organisations. The Gang fled temporarily to Belgium, where they sold the stolen automobile, in the process they shot a Belgian policeman. The gang continued their automobile thefts and robberies, shooting two more policemen in the process, automobiles were not yet common so the gang usually stole still expensive cars from garages, not from the street. By March 1912, police had arrested many of the gang’s supporters, in March 1912, gang member and would-be leader Octave Garnier sent a mocking letter to the Sûreté – with his fingerprints. In those days, the French police still did not yet use fingerprinting, on March 25,1912, the gang stole a de Dion-Bouton automobile in the Forest of Sénart south of Paris by shooting the driver through the heart

15.
Territoire de Belfort
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The Territoire de Belfort is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France. Its departmental code is 90, and its prefecture is Belfort, there is a single arrondissement, which is sub-divided into 9 cantons and thence into 102 communes. The administrative district Territoire de Belfort was created under the terms of the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt, the German Empire annexed almost all of Alsace, but the French were able to negotiate retention of the Territoire de Belfort which thereby was separated from the rest of Alsace. There were three reasons for this exceptional treatment, The population in and around Belfort was French-speaking. Belfort had demonstrated heroic resistance, under Colonel Pierre Denfert-Rochereau, to the German invasion, belforts left-wing Catholic Deputy Émile Keller now conducted a similarly forceful political campaign in the National Assembly. He argued that ceding heroic Belfort to Germany after the war would be unthinkable, Belfort, on steep ground and lined up with the Vosges Mountains, would form part of a natural line of defence for Frances newly imposed eastern frontier. This encouraged the politicians in Paris to hold out for its retention, the Germans agreed primarily because the Prussian military officiers indicated that leaving it in France would give Germany a more defensible border. After retaining its status as a territoire for just over half a century. France had recovered Alsace three years earlier, but the decision was not to reintegrate Belfort into its former department. When the regions of France were created, Belfort was not included in the region of Alsace, the departmental income of the department in 2008 had increased to €18259 which was a little below the overall national figure. The averaged figure for the Territoire de Belfort masked relatively large disparities such as, in particular, in 2006 the department recorded a population of 144,600. Of these, slightly more than 50,000 live in the commune of Belfort itself, four principal phases can be identified in the population trends during the two centuries between 1801 and 2000. The period from 1800 to 1872 was marked by economic development. However, the epidemic which in 1851 arose from increasing urbanisation, along with a more general economic slow-down. Between 1803 and 1872 the recorded population increased from 37,558 to 56,781, the population increase and the economic development were at their most intense in the Belfort conglomeration itself. Population declined, having slipped to 86,648 in 1946, after 1945 the region became a focus for industrial growth, population levels followed the same rising trend, to stand at 131,999 in 1982. Nevertheless, as in parts of France, from about 1980 it was clear that the economic crisis of the 1970s was having a lasting effect in slowing the pace of expansion. Geographers might contend that Belfort lies on the ridge that divides two regions of France, but before 1870 it was part of Alsace

16.
Roland Georges Garros
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Eugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros was an early French aviator and a fighter pilot during World War I. Eugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros was born in Saint-Denis, Réunion and he started his aviation career in 1909 flying a Demoiselle monoplane, an aircraft that only flew well with a small lightweight pilot. Licence no.147 in July 1910, on September 4,1911, he set an altitude record of 3,950 m. The following year, on September 6,1912, after Austrian aviator Philipp von Blaschke had flown to 4,360 m, the following year, Garros joined the French army at the outbreak of World War I. In the early stages of the air war in World War I the problem of mounting a machine gun on combat aircraft was considered by a number of individuals. As a reconnaissance pilot with the Escadrille MS26, Garros visited the Morane-Saulnier Works in December 1914, saulniers work on metal deflector wedges attached to propeller blades was taken forward by Garros, he eventually had a workable installation fitted to his Morane-Saulnier Type L aircraft. The Aero Club of America awarded him a medal for this invention three years later. On 18 April 1915, either Garross fuel line clogged or, by other accounts, his aircraft was downed by ground fire, Garros failed to destroy his aircraft completely before being taken prisoner, most significantly, the gun and armoured propeller remained intact. Legend has it that after examining the plane, German aircraft engineers, led by Fokker, in fact the work on Fokkers system had been going for at least six months before Garross aircraft fell into their hands. With the advent of the interrupter gear the tables were turned on the Allies, with Fokkers planes shooting down many Allied aircraft, Garros finally managed to escape from a POW camp in Germany on 14 February 1918, after several attempts, and rejoined the French army. He settled into Escadrille 26 to pilot a Spad, and claimed two victories on 2 October 1918, one of which was confirmed. On 5 October 1918, he was shot down and killed near Vouziers, Ardennes and his adversary was probably German ace Hermann Habich from Jasta 49. Garros is erroneously called the worlds first fighter ace, in fact, he shot down only four aircraft, the definition of ace is five or more victories. The honour of becoming the first ace went to another French airman, a tennis centre, which he attended religiously when he was studying in Paris, was named after him in the 1920s, the Stade de Roland Garros. The stadium accommodates the French Open, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, consequently, the tournament is officially called Les internationaux de France de Roland-Garros. According to Vũ Trọng Phụngs urban novel Dumb Luck, during times the Hanoi government named the citys main tennis stadium after Roland Garros. The international airport of La Réunion, Roland Garros Airport, is named after him. The place where he landed in Bizerte is actually called place of Roland Garros, the French car manufacturer Peugeot commissioned a Roland Garros limited edition version of its 205 model in celebration of the tennis tournament that bears his name

17.
Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum

18.
Igor Stravinsky
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Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century, Stravinskys compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. His Russian phase which continued with such as Renard, The Soldiers Tale. The works from this tended to make use of traditional musical forms, drawing on earlier styles. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures, Stravinsky was born on 17 June 1882 in Oranienbaum, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, the Russian imperial capital, and was brought up in Saint Petersburg. It is believed that Stravinsky’s ancestry is traceable back to the 17th and 18th centuries, to the bearers of the Soulima, ivan Sulima, was a famous Ukrainian hetman 1628–1635. Stravinskys family branch most likely came from Stravinskas, polonized Lithuanian land owners and it is still unclear to when exactly the Soulima part of the surname was dropped. Stravinsky recalled his schooldays as being lonely, later saying that I never came across anyone who had any attraction for me. Stravinsky began piano lessons as a boy, studying music theory. In 1890, he saw a performance of Tchaikovskys ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre, despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to study law. Stravinsky enrolled at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901, Stravinskys father died of cancer that year, by which time his son had already begun spending more time on his musical studies than on law. Thereafter, he concentrated on studying music, in 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he came to regard as a second father. These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakovs death in 1908, in 1905 Stravinsky was betrothed to his cousin Katherine Gavrylivna Nosenko, whom he had known since early childhood. Diaghilev was sufficiently impressed by Fireworks to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations and then to compose a ballet score. The early period of Igor Stravinsky’s work would be incomplete without a research of his life while in Ukraine. From approximately 1890 till 1914 the composer was frequently visiting Ustyluh, town in Volyn Oblast and he spent most of his summers there and that’s where he met his cousin, Katherine Nosenko who he married in 1906. In 1907 Stravinsky designed and built his own house in Ustyluh where his own family stayed often during summer times until 1914 and his new Ukrainian home he called “My heavenly place”. In this house Igor Stravinsky worked on his seventeen early compositions, among which were orchestral fantasy Fireworks, ballets Firebird, Petrushka, currently, after its renovation this house is the only composers house-museum opened to the public

19.
Ballet
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Ballet /ˈbæleɪ/ is a type of performance dance that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread, highly technical form of dance with its own based on French terminology. It has been influential and has defined the foundational techniques used in many other dance genres. Becoming a ballet dancer requires years of training, Ballet has been taught in various schools around the world, which have historically incorporated their own cultures to evolve the art. Ballet may also refer to a dance work, which consists of the choreography. A well-known example of this is The Nutcracker, a ballet that was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained artists, the word came into English usage from the French around 1630. Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th and 16th centuries before being spread from Italy to France by an Italian aristocrat, Catherine de Medici, in France, ballet developed even further under her aristocratic influence. The dancers in these early court ballets were mostly noble amateurs, Ballets in this period were lengthy and elaborate and often served a political purpose. Ornamented costumes were meant to impress viewers and restricted freedom of movement. The ballets were performed in large chambers with viewers on three sides, French court ballet reached its height under the reign of King Louis XIV. Known as the Sun King, Louis symbolized the brilliance of France, in 1661 Louis founded the Académie Royale de Danse to establish standards and certify dance instructors. In 1672, Louis XIV made Jean-Baptiste Lully the director of the Académie Royale de Musique from which the first professional ballet company, Lully is considered the most important composer of music for ballets de cour and instrumental to the development of the form. Ballet went into decline in France after 1830, though it continued to develop in Denmark, Italy, the arrival in Europe on the eve of First World War of the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev, revived interest in the ballet and started the modern era. The Russian choreographer Michel Fokine challenged tradition and called for reforms that reinvigorated ballet as an art form, in the 20th century, ballet had a wide influence on other dance genres, and subgenres of ballet have also evolved. In the United States, choreographer George Balanchine developed what is now known as neoclassical ballet, other developments include contemporary ballet and post-structural ballet. Also in the century, ballet took a turn dividing it from classical ballet to the introduction of modern dance. Stylistic variations have emerged and evolved since the Italian Renaissance, early, classical variations are primarily associated with geographic origin

20.
The Rite of Spring
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The Rite of Spring is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilevs Ballets Russes company, when first performed, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation and a near-riot in the audience. Stravinsky was a young, virtually unknown composer when Diaghilev recruited him to create works for the Ballets Russes, the Rite was the third such project, after the acclaimed Firebird and Petrushka. Massines was the forerunner of many productions directed by the worlds leading ballet-masters. In the 1980s, Nijinskys original choreography, long believed lost, was reconstructed by the Joffrey Ballet in Los Angeles, Stravinskys score contains many novel features for its time, including experiments in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and dissonance. Analysts have noted in the score a significant grounding in Russian folk music, the music has influenced many of the 20th-centurys leading composers and is one of the most recorded works in the classical repertoire. Fyodors association with many of the figures in Russian music, including Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky. In 1901 Stravinsky began to study law at St Petersburg University, while taking lessons in harmony. Having impressed Rimsky-Korsakov with some of his compositional efforts, Stravinsky worked under the guidance of the older composer. In 1909 Feu dartifice was performed at a concert in St Petersburg, among those in the audience was the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who at that time was planning to introduce Russian music and art to western audiences. Like Stravinsky, Diaghilev had initially studied law, but had gravitated via journalism into the theatrical world, in 1907 he began his theatrical career by presenting five concerts in Paris, in the following year he introduced Mussorgskys opera Boris Godunov. In 1909, still in Paris, he launched the Ballets Russes, initially with Borodins Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, to present these works Diaghilev recruited the choreographer Michel Fokine, the designer Léon Bakst and the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilevs intention, however, was to new works in a distinctively 20th-century style. Having heard Feu dartifice he approached Stravinsky, initially with a request for help in orchestrating music by Chopin to create the ballet Les Sylphides. Stravinsky worked on the opening Nocturne and the closing Valse Brillante, his reward was a bigger commission, to write the music for a new ballet. Stravinsky worked through the winter of 1909–10, in association with Fokine who was choreographing The Firebird. During this period Stravinsky made the acquaintance of Nijinsky who, although not dancing in the ballet, was an observer of its development. Stravinsky was uncomplimentary when recording his first impressions of the dancer, observing that he seemed immature, on the other hand, Stravinsky found Diaghilev an inspiration, the very essence of a great personality

21.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town

22.
Vincenzo Peruggia
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Vincenzo Peruggia was an Italian thief, most famous for stealing the Mona Lisa on 21 August 1911. Born in Dumenza, Varese, Italy, he died in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, in 1911, Peruggia perpetrated what has been described as the greatest art theft of the 20th century. It was a theory that the former Louvre worker hid inside the museum on Sunday, August 20. But, according to Peruggias interrogation in Florence after his arrest, he entered the museum on Monday, August 21 around 7 am and he said he wore one of the white smocks that museum employees customarily wore and was indistinguishable from the other workers. When the Salon Carré, where the Mona Lisa hung, was empty, he lifted off the painting off the four iron pegs that secured it to the wall, there, he removed the protective case and frame. Some people report that he concealed the painting under his smock, but Peruggia was only 53, and the Mona Lisa measures approx. 21 x 30, so it would not fit under a smock worn by someone his size, instead, he said he took off his smock and wrapped it around the painting, tucked it under his arm, and left the Louvre through the same door he had entered. Peruggia hid the painting in his apartment in Paris, supposedly, when police arrived to search his apartment and question him, they accepted his alibi that he had been working at a different location on the day of the theft. After keeping the painting hidden in a trunk in his apartment for two years, Peruggia returned to Italy with it. He kept it in his apartment in Florence, Italy but grew impatient, and was caught when he contacted Alfredo Geri. Geris story conflicts with Peruggias, but it was clear that Peruggia expected a reward for returning the painting to what he regarded as its homeland, Geri called in Giovanni Poggi, director of the Uffizi Gallery, who authenticated the painting. Poggi and Geri, after taking the painting for safekeeping, informed the police, after its recovery, the painting was exhibited all over Italy with banner headlines rejoicing its return and then returned to the Louvre in 1913. Peruggia was released from jail after a time and served in the Italian army during World War I. He later married, had one daughter, Celestina, returned to France and he died on October 8,1925 in the town of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, France. His death was not widely reported on by the media, obituaries appeared mistakenly only when another Vincenzo Peruggia died in Haute-Savoie in 1947, there are currently two predominant theories regarding the theft of the Mona Lisa. Patriotism Peruggia said he did it for a reason, he wanted to bring the painting back for display in Italy after it was stolen by Napoleon. The question of money is also confirmed by letters that Peruggia sent to his father after the theft, on December 22,1911, four months after the theft, he wrote that Paris was where I will make my fortune and that his will arrive in one shot. The following year, he wrote, I am making a vow for you to live long and enjoy the prize that your son is about to realize for you and for all our family

23.
Mona Lisa
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The painting is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517 and it was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797. Mona in Italian is a form of address originating as ma donna – similar to Ma’am, Madam. This became madonna, and its contraction mona, the title of the painting, though traditionally spelled Mona, is also commonly spelled in modern Italian as Monna Lisa but this is rare in English. Vasaris account of the Mona Lisa comes from his biography of Leonardo published in 1550,31 years after the artists death and it has long been the best-known source of information on the provenance of the work and identity of the sitter. Leonardos assistant Salaì, at his death in 1525, owned a portrait which in his papers was named la Gioconda. Dated October 1503, the note was written by Leonardos contemporary Agostino Vespucci and this note likens Leonardo to renowned Greek painter Apelles, who is mentioned in the text, and states that Leonardo was at that time working on a painting of Lisa del Giocondo. The model, Lisa del Giocondo, was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, the painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea. The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means jocund or, literally, the jocund one, in French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning. Before that discovery, scholars had developed several alternative views as to the subject of the painting, some argued that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, identifying at least four other paintings as the Mona Lisa referred to by Vasari. Several other women have been proposed as the subject of the painting, the consensus of art historians in the 21st century maintains the long-held traditional opinion, that the painting depicts Lisa del Giocondo. Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, although the Louvre states that it was doubtless painted between 1503 and 1506, the art historian Martin Kemp says there are some difficulties in confirming the actual dates with certainty. According to Leonardos contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, after he had lingered over it four years, Leonardo, later in his life, is said to have regretted never having completed a single work. In 1516, Leonardo was invited by King François I to work at the Clos Lucé near the castle in Amboise. It is believed that he took the Mona Lisa with him, bambach has concluded that da Vinci probably continued refining the work until 1516 or 1517. Upon his death, the painting was inherited with other works by his pupil, Francis I bought the painting for 4,000 écus and kept it at Palace of Fontainebleau, where it remained until Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, it was moved to the Louvre, during the Franco-Prussian War it was moved from the Louvre to the Brest Arsenal. In December 2015, it was reported that French scientist Pascal Cotte had found a hidden portrait underneath the surface of the painting using reflective light technology, the portrait is an underlying image of a model looking off to the side

24.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world

25.
1913 Tour de France
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The 1913 Tour de France was the 11th edition of the Tour de France, taking place between 29 June and 27 July. The total distance was 5,287 kilometres and the speed of the riders was 26.715 kilometres per hour. The competition was won by the Belgian Philippe Thys, after in the sixth stage Eugène Christophe broke his bicycle. In the last stage, Thys also had problems, but he got help during the repairs. The general classification has been calculated in the format ever since. This was also intended to increase combativity, because in the system riders did not care about time gaps. For the first time, the route of the race was in the opposite direction, prior to the 1913 race, the Tour the France always had been in the clockwise direction through France, and in 1913 it was anticlockwise. The 1913 Tour started with 140 cyclists, there were 51 cyclists distributed over 9 teams, the remaining 89 cyclists started in the isolés category. This edition started with six former Tour de France winners, the most ever, although cyclists had started in teams previously, the rules had forbidden them to work together against other cyclists. In 1913, this changed, and cyclists from the team were allowed to work together. The first African cyclist took part in the Tour de France in 1913, Neffati had been discovered by Tour organizer Henri Desgrange, and would later become a driver at lAuto, the newspaper that organised the Tour de France. In the first stages, not much happened in the overall classification, the stage was won by Italian Giovanni Micheletto in a sprint. Micheletto was not part of the first group in the second stage, there were four cyclists who had been in the lead group in both stages, and they were jointly leading the Tour. The crucial stage proved to be the sixth, at the start of the sixth stage, last years winner Defraye lead the general classification, some 5 minutes ahead of Eugène Christophe. In that sixth stage, the first mountains were climbed, Defraye was dropped quickly, and Christophe lead the race. Christophe came up first on the Aubisque, and in place behind Philippe Thys on the Tourmalet. On the way down from the Tourmalet, Christophe was hit by a vehicle, and his fork broke, rendering his bike unusable. He walked more than 10 km down to the next village and he worked on it for over three hours, being watched by race officials who made sure that he was not helped by anyone

26.
Philippe Thys
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Philippe Thys was a Belgian cyclist and three times winner of the Tour de France. In 1910, Thys won Belgiums first national cyclo-cross championship, the following year he won the Circuit Français Peugeot, followed by stage races from Paris to Toulouse and Paris to Turin. He turned professional to ride the Tour de France, Thys won the Tour in 1913 despite breaking his bicycle fork and finding a bicycle shop to mend it. The repair cost him a 10-minute penalty but he won by just under nine minutes, Thys took the stage and the race lead when Eugène Christophe broke his fork on the way to Luchon. Marcel Buysse overtook him in the results the following day, another broken fork on the way to Nice gave Thys the lead again but drama continued when he fell on the penultimate stage from Longwy to Dunkirk. Despite being knocked out and being penalised for help from teammates to repair his bike, he won 8 minutes and 37 seconds ahead of Gustave Garrigou, with Buysse third. In 1914, he took his first stage victory, to Le Havre and his victory looked uncertain, his lead cut to less than two minutes ahead of Henri Pélissier. He won the stage but Thys finished on his wheel to win the Tour, in 1917, Thys won Paris–Tours and the Giro di Lombardia. In 1918, he won the second and last Tours–Paris. After World War I, Thys won the Tour a third and he led from the second stage, Henri Desgrange writing France is not unaware that, without the war, the crack rider from Anderlecht would be celebrating not his third Tour, but his fifth or sixth. Not until 1955 did Louison Bobet equal Thyss record, and not until 1963 did Jacques Anquetil break it with four wins, Thys also rode in the 1922 Tour, winning five stages, and in the 1924 Tour, winning two stages. Thys was one of a generation of cyclists whose careers were disrupted by the First World War, Philippe Thys profile at Cycling Archives Official Tour de France results for Philippe Thys

27.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie

28.
Pierre Veuillot
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Pierre Marie Joseph Veuillot was a Roman Catholic Cardinal and Archbishop of Paris. He was ordained on 26 March 1939 in Paris and he served as a member of the parochial clergy until 1942, when he went to work in the Vatican Secretariat of State. In 1959 Pope John XXIII appointed him Bishop of Angers and he remained in Angers until 12 June 1961, when he was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Paris with the titular see of Constantia in Thracia. He succeeded as Archbishop of Paris on 1 December 1966 and he was created and proclaimed Cardinal-Priest of San Luigi dei Francesi by Pope Paul VI on 26 June 1967. He died suddenly of leukemia on 14 February 1968 at the age of 55, having been a cardinal for only 6 months

29.
Louis Bouyer
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Louis Bouyer was a French Lutheran minister who was received into the Catholic Church in 1939. During his religious career he was a scholar who was relied upon during the Second Vatican Council and he was known for his books on Christian spirituality and its history. Along with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and others, he was a co-founder of the international review Communio and he was chosen by the pope to be part of a team to initiate the International Theological Commission in 1969. Born into a Protestant family in Paris, Louis Bouyer, after a receiving a degree from the Sorbonne, studied theology with the Protestant faculties of Paris and then Strasbourg. He was ordained a Lutheran minister in 1936 and served as vicar of the Lutheran parish of the Trinity in Paris until World War II, in 1939, the study of the christology and ecclesiology of St. Athanasius of Alexandria led Bouyer to the Catholic Church. Received into the Catholic Church in the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille in 1944, he entered the congregation of the priests of the Oratory and he was a professor at the Catholic Institute of Paris until 1963 and then taught in England, Spain, and the United States. In 1969 he wrote the book The Decomposition of Catholicism, which presented what he saw as important liturgical, in 1999 he received the Cardinal-Grente prize of the French Academy for all his work. He died 22 October 2004 in Paris, a victim of many years of Alzheimers and he was buried in the cemetery of the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille. Louis Bouyer, Pierre Jounel, Pierre-Marie Gy, review La Maison-Dieu,246,2006,183 p. De Rémur, Guillaume Bruté. La théologie trinitaire de Louis Bouyer, Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome,2010,378 p. Duchesne, Louis Bouyer, ed. Artège, Perpignan,2011,127 p. Zordan, Davide. Litinéraire théologique de Louis Bouyer, Paris, Editions du Cerf,2008,807 p. Louis Bouyer biography on IgnatiusInsight, why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work, Louis Bouyer on the Reformation, Catholic Dossier 7 no. Mark Brumley, Why Catholicism Makes Protestantism Tick, Louis Bouyer on the Reformation, on the Ignatius Insight webpage

30.
Alpine skiing
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Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the sport or recreation of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. It is typically practiced at ski resorts which provide such as ski lifts, artificial snow making and grooming, first aid. Back-country skiers use alpine skiing equipment to ski off the marked pistes, in cases with the assistance of snowmobiles. Alpine skiing has been an event at the Winter Olympic Games since 1936, as of 1994, there were estimated to be 55 million people worldwide, who engaged in Alpine skiing. Approximately 30 million of these were in Europe,15 million in the US, as of 1996, there were reportedly 4,500 ski areas, operating 26,000 ski lifts and enjoying skier visits. The preponderant region for downhills skiing was Europe, followed by Japan, a skier following the fall line will reach the maximum possible speed for that slope. A skier with skis pointed perpendicular to the line, across the hill instead of down it. The speed of descent down any given hill can be controlled by changing the angle of motion in relation to the fall line, downhill skiing technique focuses on the use of turns to smoothly turn the skis from one direction to another. Good technique results in a motion from one descent angle to another one. This looks more like a series of Ss than turns followed by straight sections. The oldest and still form of alpine ski turn is the stem. In doing so, the ski pushes snow forward and to the side, the force backwards directly counteracts gravity, and slows the skier. The force to the sides, if unbalanced, will cause the skier to turn, carving is based on the shape of the ski itself, when the ski is rotated onto its edge, the pattern cut into its side causes it to bend into an arc. The contact between the arc of the ski edges and the snow naturally causes the ski to tend to move along that arc, slowing the skier, modern alpine skis are shaped to enable carve turning, and have evolved significantly since the 1980s. During the 1930s, the Kandahar binding was introduced, which could be locked down at the heel for the downhill portions, the Kandahar remained in widespread use until the 1960s. As more skiers took up the sport, especially in the 1950s, dr. Richard Spademan saw 150 spiral fractures pass through his emergency department near Squaw Valley in three days, an event that led to the development of the Spademan binding. By the early 1950s, several safety bindings were on the market allowed the ski to come off when the ski twisted to the side. This helped reduce the incidence of spiral fractures, originally boots were cut low, just over the ankle, and soft laterally, both of which limited the amount of sideways rotating force that could be applied

31.
Philology
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Philology is the study of language in written historical sources, it is a combination of literary criticism, history, and linguistics. It is more defined as the study of literary texts and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist, in older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative and historical linguistics. Indo-European studies involves the comparative philology of all Indo-European languages, Philology, with its focus on historical development, is contrasted with linguistics due to Ferdinand de Saussures insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis. The contrast continued with the emergence of structuralism and Chomskyan linguistics alongside its emphasis on syntax, the term changed little with the Latin philologia, and later entered the English language in the 16th century, from the Middle French philologie, in the sense of love of literature. The adjective φιλόλογος meant fond of discussion or argument, talkative, in Hellenistic Greek also implying an excessive preference of argument over the love of true wisdom, as an allegory of literary erudition, Philologia appears in 5th-century post-classical literature, an idea revived in Late Medieval literature. The meaning of love of learning and literature was narrowed to the study of the development of languages in 19th-century usage of the term. Most continental European countries still maintain the term to designate departments, colleges, position titles, J. R. R. Tolkien opposed the nationalist reaction against philological practices, claiming that the philological instinct was universal as is the use of language. Based on the critique of Friedrich Nietzsche, US scholars since the 1980s have viewed philology as responsible for a narrowly scientistic study of language. The comparative linguistics branch of philology studies the relationship between languages, similarities between Sanskrit and European languages were first noted in the early 16th century and led to speculation of a common ancestor language from which all these descended. Philology also includes the study of texts and their history and it includes elements of textual criticism, trying to reconstruct an authors original text based on variant copies of manuscripts. Since that time, the principles of textual criticism have been improved and applied to other widely distributed texts such as the Bible. Scholars have tried to reconstruct the original readings of the Bible from the manuscript variants and this method was applied to Classical Studies and to medieval texts as a way to reconstruct the authors original work. A related study method known as higher criticism studies the authorship, date, as these philological issues are often inseparable from issues of interpretation, there is no clear-cut boundary between philology and hermeneutics. When text has a significant political or religious influence, scholars have difficulty reaching objective conclusions, some scholars avoid all critical methods of textual philology, especially in historical linguistics, where it is important to study the actual recorded materials. Supporters of New Philology insist on a diplomatic approach, a faithful rendering of the text exactly as found in the manuscript. Another branch of philology, cognitive philology, studies written and oral texts and this science compares the results of textual science with the results of experimental research of both psychology and artificial intelligence production systems. In the case of Bronze Age literature, philology includes the prior decipherment of the language under study and this has notably been the case with the Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hittite, Ugaritic and Luwian languages

32.
Jean Fournet
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Jean Fournet was a French conductor. Fournet’s father was a flutist who gave him instruction on the flute. Fournet was then trained at the Conservatoire de Paris in flute by Gaston Blanquart and Marcel Moyse and he performed on the flute at age fifteen with the Orchestra of the Théâtre des Arts in Rouen. He first established himself as a conductor in his native country conducting in Rouen 1936-1940, Marseilles 1940-1944 and he was also a professor of conducting at the École Normale de Musique de Paris 1944-1962. His debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra was in 1950, the Netherlands became Fournet’s second home. He became principal guest conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Hilversum 1961-1968 and he married Miriam-Hannecart Jakes, an American who performed the Cor anglais with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra from 1977. He served as director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra 1968-1973. He was the conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra 1983-1986, Fournet was also president of the jury of the Besançon International Conductors Competition for many years. He proved a welcome addition to companies in America, where the French style had become something of a lost art. Beyond stage work, he proved, both early and late, an interpreter of the French symphonic literature. He was known as a gentle perfectionist, rarely raising his voice in rehearsal, Jean Fournets career extended over an extraordinarily long period. His final concert was conducted in January 2005, at age 91, following that concert he retired to his home in Weesp near Hilversum in the Netherlands. Hector Berlioz, La damnation de Faust, Op.20, Gabriel Fauré, Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. Le chef dorchestre Jean Fournet est mort Le Figaro, May 11,2008

33.
Charles Trenet
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Louis Charles Auguste Claude Trenet, known as Charles Trenet, was a French singer and songwriter. He was most famous for his recordings from the late 1930s until the mid-1950s, in an era in which it was unusual for singers to write their own material, Trenet wrote prolifically and declined to record any but his own songs. La Mer, Ya dla joie, Que reste-t-il de nos amours and his catalogue of songs is enormous, numbering close to a thousand. Some of his songs had unconventional subject matter, with whimsical imagery bordering on the surreal, the lovers engaged in a minuet in Polka du Roi reveal themselves at length to be no longer human, they are made of wax and trapped in the Musée Grévin. Many of his hits from the 1930s and 1940s effectively combine the melodic and his song La Mer, which according to legend he composed with Léo Chauliac on a train in 1943, was recorded in 1946. Trenet explained in an interview that he was told that La Mer was not swing enough to be a hit, La Mer is Trenets best-known work outside the French-speaking world, with more than 400 recorded versions. The song was given unrelated English words and under the title Beyond the Sea, was a hit for Bobby Darin in the early 1960s, beyond the Sea was used in the ending credits of Finding Nemo. His Formidable was written as impressions of a trip to America, La Mer has been used in many films such as Bernardo Bertoluccis 2003 The Dreamers, the 2010 German film Animals United, and in the closing scene of Mr Beans Holiday. A Julio Iglesias version plays in the scene of the 2011 spy film. Both Trenet songs La Mer and Vous qui Passez sans me Voir were featured prominently in Henry Jagloms 1971 A Safe Place and it was also used as the opening title song in Steve Martins L. A. Story in 1991. Other Trenet songs were recorded by such popular French singers as Maurice Chevalier, Jean Sablon, when he was seven years old, his parents divorced and he was sent to boarding school in Béziers, but he returned home just a few months later, suffering from typhoid fever. It was during his convalescence at home that he developed his talents, taking up music. In 1922, Trenet moved to Perpignan, this time as a day pupil, a water-colourist friend of the family André Fons-Godail, the Catalan Renoir, used to take him out painting. His poetry is said to have the eye for detail. Many of his songs had references to his surroundings such as places near Narbonne, the Pyrenees and he passed his baccalauréat with high marks in 1927. After leaving school he left for Berlin where he studied art, when Trenet first arrived in Paris in the 1930s, he worked in a movie studio as a props handler and assistant, and later joined up with the artists in the Montparnasse neighbourhood. His admiration of the surrealist poet and Catholic mystic Max Jacob, from 1933 to 1936, he worked with the Swiss pianist Johnny Hess as a duo known as Charles and Johnny. They performed at various Parisian venues, such as Le Fiacre, La Villa dEste, the Européen and they recorded 18 discs for Pathé, the most successful of which was Quand les beaux jours seront là/Sur le Yang-Tsé-Kiang

34.
Bookselling
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Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookwomen, or bookmen, the founding of libraries in 300 BC stimulated the energies of the Athenian booksellers. In Rome, toward the end of the republic, it became the fashion to have a library, and Roman booksellers carried on a flourishing trade. The spread of Christianity naturally created a demand for copies of the Gospels, other sacred books. The modern system of bookselling dates from soon after the introduction of printing, in the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Low Countries for a time became the chief centre of the bookselling world. Modern book selling has changed dramatically with the advent of the Internet, with major websites such as Amazon, eBay, and other big book distributors offering affiliate programs, book sales have now, more than ever, been put in the hands of the small business owner. Bookstores may be part of a chain, or local independent bookstores. Stores can range in size offering from several hundred to several hundred thousands of titles and they may be brick-and-mortar stores or internet only stores or a combination of both. Sizes for the larger bookstores exceed half a million titles, bookstores often sell other printed matter besides books, such as newspapers, magazines and maps, additional product lines may vary enormously, particularly among independent bookstores. Another common type of bookstore is the used bookstore or second-hand bookshop which buys and sells used, a range of titles are available in used bookstores, including in print and out of print books. Book collectors tend to frequent used book stores, large online bookstores offer used books for sale, too. In the book of Jeremiah the prophet is represented as dictating to Baruch the scribe and these scribes were the earliest booksellers, and supplied copies as they were demanded. Aristotle possessed an extensive library, and Plato is recorded to have paid the large sum of one hundred minae for three small treatises of Philolaus the Pythagorean. When the Alexandrian library was founded about 300 BC, various expedients were used for the purpose of procuring books, in Rome, toward the end of the republic, it became the fashion to have a library as part of the household furniture. Roman booksellers carried on a flourishing trade and their shops were chiefly in the Argiletum, and in the Vicus Sandalarius. On the door, or on the posts, was a list of the books on sale, and Martial. In the time of Augustus the great booksellers were the Sosii, according to Justinian, a law was passed granting to the scribes the ownership of the material written, this may be the beginnings of the modern law of copyright. All references had to be certified by the local mayor, if the application was accepted, the bookseller would have to swear an oath of loyalty to the régime

A collection of differing types of alpine skis, with Nordic and telemark skis at far left. From right: a group of powder skis, a group of twin-tip skis, a group of carving (parabolic) skis, and then an older-type non-sidecut alpine ski along with the non-alpine skis.

The Nobel Prize in Literature (Swedish: Nobelpriset i litteratur) has been awarded annually, since 1901, to an author …

Announcement of the Nobel Prize laureate in literature, 2008

In 1901, Frenchpoet and essayistSully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect."

Selma Lagerlöf, the first female writer to be awarded a Nobel Prize in literature, faced major controversies. Illustration from Svenska Dagbladet, 11 December 1909